Monumental Mural Erased by Pinochet Reemerges in Chile After 50 Years
A monumental mural by Chilean artist Julio Escámez, long believed destroyed after Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup, is being uncovered and restored inside the Salon de Honor at Chillán’s city hall. The Municipality of Chillán’s Heritage Unit began the recovery project in 2021 and is now in its third phase, removing 12 layers of white paint millimeter by millimeter; completion is planned for December 2027. Commissioned in 1969 by Mayor Eduardo Contreras Mella, Escámez spent two years creating the 452-square-foot mural titled “Beginning and End,” which was unveiled in 1972 by Mayor Ricardo Lagos Reyes and later viewed by President Salvador Allende; poet Pablo Neruda praised it as containing “the most extraordinary essences of creation.” After the coup, Pinochet ordered the work destroyed and Escámez went into exile in Costa Rica, but current mayor Camilo Benavente has backed the effort to recover the mural, whose survival was confirmed through analysis initiated in 2021.
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This story was covered in Repatriation Pride, Museum Scandals, and Heat Strikes